The best payment solution for your business will vary, depending on your requirements. In this article, we’ll take you through some ins and outs of selecting a payment solution for your business.

Bread and butter for instore payments: EFTPOS machines

Core to a small business’ ‘bricks and mortar’ store is the ability to take payments easily via an EFTPOS machine. This payment solution provides a convenient and efficient way for your customers to pay. In Australia, consumers have access to more than 940,000 EFTPOS machines, and with billions of transactions being processed annually, consumers welcome card payments as a standard payment option.

As a business owner, you’re spoilt for choice when it comes to selecting an EFTPOS machine. With dozens of providers in the Australian market and even more variety in machine shape, size and function, here are some of the top considerations for choosing an EFTPOS machine that’s right for your business.

1. Mobile EFTPOS Machines

Mobile EFTPOS machines are a great option for businesses that want the flexibility of taking payments on the shop or restaurant floor, and come in handy for opportunities like pop-up shops, farmers markets or food trucks. 

How it will benefit your business:  Mobile EFTPOS machines allow you and your staff to take payments anywhere in store, allowing you to design your customer checkout process with more flexibility – and even reduce queue waiting times. Machines that have two sim cards installed and have a communications fallback feature add an extra layer of assurance that your machine will be able to take payments when you need it.

What to look for:  Machines that are wireless, equipped with a long-lasting battery and offer multiple communication options (like Wifi and 4G) to connect to a network.

2. Integrated or standalone

EFTPOS machines that are integrated into your Point of Sale system could provide a better customer experience by making the payment process faster and reducing transaction amount errors.

How it will benefit your business:  When your EFTPOS machine is integrated into your POS system, you don’t need to manually key-in the transaction amount, speeding up the checkout process and reducing key-in errors.

What to look for:  Check with the EFTPOS provider if their machines are compatible with your existing POS system.

3. Merchant Choice Routing

Merchant Choice Routing is an option for merchants to route contactless debit card transactions via the domestic eftpos™ network, instead of the relevant multi-network providers, such as Visa or Mastercard.

How will it benefit your business:  Depending on the average contactless  transaction value that your customers pay, your business could save on your merchant service fees.

What to look for: A payments provider that offers Merchant Choice Routing. Merchant Choice Routing may not be beneficial to every business, so make sure you look for a provider who will take the time to understand your average transaction amount and provide you with information that can help you decide whether it’s right for you.

4. Acceptance methods

With payment technology continually evolving, customers are presented with many options when it comes to payment methods. From debit to credit, local to international cards, and digital wallets, there are now more ways to pay than ever before.

How it will benefit your business: Offering the right mix of payment acceptance methods will ensure your customers get to pay the way they want - which could increase customer satisfaction.

What to look for:An EFTPOS machine that accepts - 

• Contactless transactions – by tapping a card, mobile phone or wearable (like a smart watch)
• The credit and debit schemes that your customers want to pay with – like Visa, Mastercard, eftpos, AMEX, JCB, Diners, and Union Pay
• Digital wallets – like Apple Pay and Google Pay

Taking payments online

With consumer habits changing over the last few years, many businesses have taken their offering online with great success. In fact, in the first weeks of the pandemic, a third of Australian businesses adopted or expanded their online offering. Taking your business online is a big step but, if done properly, can open up real growth opportunities. 

1. Payments page user experience

Ensuring a smooth checkout process is a key way to increase sales and reduce cart abandonment on your site. Two immediate ways you may improve your checkout process are providing a guest checkout and maintaining your payments page on your own website, instead of redirecting your customers to a third-party-hosted checkout page.

How it will benefit your business:  14% of online shoppers stated they abandoned their carts because they couldn’t checkout as a guest, while 1 in 10 said it was due to a complex checkout process. Offering guest checkout and simplifying the user experience of your checkout process can help close the gap on lost sales from customers already on your site, ready to buy.

What to look for:  A payment gateway that allows you to keep the payments page on your own website with your own branding, so it doesn’t interrupt the checkout flow, and allows for guest checkouts.

2. Scheme tokenisation

If your webshop allows customers to create an account and save their payment details, consider implementing scheme tokenisation. With scheme tokenisation, expired card details that are kept on file on your website will automatically be updated by the credit card provider, without the customer needing to manually update the details themselves.

How will it benefit your business: Failed authorisation due to expired cards can lead to unpredictability for your business’ cashflow. Investing the resources into notifying your customer can be costly and waiting for them to update their card details can take time. There’s also a chance that reaching out to your customer for updated card details could trigger them to look elsewhere. With scheme tokenisation, card details are updated automatically by the scheme.

What to look for: A payment gateway that offers scheme tokenisation in line with international compliance requirements, including PCI DSS, and additional security options like EMV 3DS.

Subscription payments

Subscription business models are everywhere – from gym memberships to entertainment streaming services – and it’s only becoming more popular, with about 8 out of 10 Australians subscribing to a service. The convenience of “invisible payments” makes subscription-based selling a profitable model, with 70% of business leaders saying that subscription-based offers will be a key part of their future strategy.

How will it benefit your business:  If you offer a subscription product or service and are relying on a regular manual payment from your customers (via an invoice or an EFTPOS transaction with a card in-person), a recurring billing solution could help you reduce late payments and free up your staff.

What to look for:  A payment gateway that allows for easy set-up of recurring payments by securely saving customer credit card details, with a portal that will let you add customers or make changes in real time.

ANZ Worldline Payment Solutions provides payment technologies that can benefit Australian businesses.

To find out more about the best payment options for small businesses, and how we can help you get up and running, get in touch today.